Various paperboard carriers for the transportation, storage and/or display of articles similar in height and breadth, such as cans, tumblers, goblets and the like have been devised. Some carriers are intended to receive and hold the articles within the carriers through the use of a snugly fitting pierced carrier sleeve such as disclosed by Weiss in U.S. Pat. No. 3,223,306 issued Dec. 14, 1965 and by Gentry in U.S. Pat. No. 3,386,643 issued June 4, 1968. Others use flaps, cut to surround entirely or partially the end portions of the articles, or latches, formed to engage the inside edges of chimed cans or hollow articles, in order to retain the articles within the carriers. Examples of flap and latch restraints are disclosed, for example, by Phipps in U.S. Pat. No. 2,722,365 issued Nov. 1, 1955, Empkie in U.S. Pat. No. 2,637,476 issued May 5, 1953, Tolaas in U.S. Pat. No. 3,283,990 issued Nov. 8, 1966, Nowak in U.S. Pat. No. 3,598,302 issued Aug. 10, 1971, Hennessey in U.S. Pat. No. 3,854,580 issued Dec. 17, 1974 and Tranquillitsky in U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,660 issued Dec. 28, 1976.
The disclosed inventions using pierced carrier sleeves are not suitable for use with fragile articles such as glass tumblers and goblets because those carriers require the articles to bear upon each other and be tightly wrapped. Carriers having flaps for chimed or hollow end articles require numerous cuts in the formation of the blank and bends in the assembly of the blank from which the carrier is made, increasing the cost of manufacture. Use of flaps to surround all or part of an article requires a relatively large quantity of material to form the carrier making it relatively costly.